


Skin Deep

by anna1795



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Just trying to write fluff, Keep some tissues on hand for that ending, M/M, Minor Violence, Past Sexual Abuse, The Feels be Reals, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, comfort cuddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-31
Updated: 2015-06-10
Packaged: 2018-04-02 04:20:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4045705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anna1795/pseuds/anna1795
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An accident during training reveals a pre-existing health condition that Drift hasn't mentioned before. Wing works to help heal his companion's past and present hurts with the aid of his own best-kept secret.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Puncture

Wing had to admit that Drift was improving with his sparring, and he was proud of his…no, ‘guest’ wasn’t a strong enough word because Drift had migrated beyond just being a person accepted to stay in Wing’s quarters. ‘Student’ didn’t fit either, even though he taught the Decepticon many different things. ‘Friend’ didn’t seem to fit the bill quite right because Drift still seemed to grumble whenever the white Knight was anywhere near him in public, but it was an improvement over the beginning, when that grumble had been more of an animalistic snarl. Lover… well, Drift was a very satisfying partner in the berth, unique in that he didn’t treat Wing like he was going to break ALL of the time, just some of the time. ‘Companion’ seemed appropriate. It encompassed many of those traits that he had prescribed to Drift, but was soft enough to avoid the commitment to something more permanent. Yes, Drift was Wing’s companion. It fit nicely; Wing could say that he was very proud of his companion.

Right now, though, as the flyer was practically dancing around the empty practice arena with dulled swords nimbly deflecting Drift’s more heavy-handed blows, he didn’t think that voicing his sentiments would wipe that frustrated snarl from his companion’s face. Wing could admit to himself, though, that Drift looked very handsome when he was concentrating so hard. 

“Hold still!” The bi-colored mech snapped at the aggravating white jet, trying to aim a blow at his upper thigh with a paint-laden practice blade, just something to soothe his wounded pride by striking Wing just once to mar that gorgeous, curved white plating…anything to make up for the fact that he was practically dripping with orange paint from numerous strikes from Wing in return. 

Wing’s only humored response was to trill with chime-like laughter. “That would defeat the entire purpose of this, Drift!” he chided in good spirits, swiping at an audial fin and dotting the tip with a splash of neon orange. “You’re supposed to try to move faster than me. Slowing myself down for you would just be a shortcut, and I don’t think you want that.” 

“Raaagh!” Drift roared, lunging forward with intent on slashing at Wing’s abdomen, but that got him nowhere as his opponent ducked under his arm and added another stripe of orange to his underarm. 

“You’re projecting your attacks,” Wing offered calmly, taking a moment to stand still and cool his internals. “Try something that I wouldn’t expect. A Knight is more than his swords.” To Drift huffed from several meters away, holding his swords too tightly and trembling from holding himself too stiff. Then, with a flash of movement, the practice swords were dropped and Wing found himself without any air in his systems when several tons of metallic, war-hardened muscle slammed into him, sending them both to the floor. Drift’s legs were straddled over Wing’s thighs (which sent a flash of completely inappropriate for the moment sensuous heat to Wing’s covered interface array, making him squirm), one arm held his middle, and another held his left wrist in a grip that wasn’t tight enough to dent plating and energon lines, but was certainly strong enough to hinder his movements. Wing stared up at his companion with glittering golden optics, cooling his frame while Drift shuddered above him, a smirk on his face. 

“There,” he rasped, inhaling rapidly to aid his cooling fans. “I finally caught you.” 

Wing just let a soft smile spread across his face, all of his attention on his handsome companion. “So you did.” He slowly, deliberately traced a line of orange across Drift’s neck cabling with his remaining blade. “I’m afraid you still lost, though.” 

Drift just stared down in shock at the smiling jet. Wing couldn’t keep his spark from fluttering at Drift’s completely flabbergasted face because it was just so adorable, and he calmly made his sentiments known by leaning up and giving his defeated student a small, chaste kiss on the tip of his nose. Drift’s optics crossed to stare at the point of contact, and he blinked slowly and silently. Wing couldn’t help the small giggle that escaped his vocalizer, but he sat up anyways and gently pushed Drift off of his body. “You have improved,” the white jet finally admitted proudly, voicing his assessment of Drift’s sword performance. 

“Not enough, though,” Drift grumbled crossly, standing up alongside Wing and flicking dripping orange paint onto the ground. “You still beat me.” 

“To be fair, I’m a match for many of the Knights here.” Wing offered a comforting pat to Drift’s shoulder and offered him one of his dropped blades. “You lasted longer today, and there were some very close misses.” With practiced ease, he nudged Drift’s arms into a less rigid position and used his leg to soften the amount of strain that was being put on Drift’s knees from soldier-like stiffness. “Just loosen up a little more. You hold yourself too stiff.” 

Sticking his own practice blades into the ground, Wing allowed his hands to travel across Drift’s hands, gently coaxing fingers and joints to different positions with feather-light touches. Drift stared down at Wing’s work with a thoughtful look on his face; calm, without an aggressive frown, and offering no resistance to Wing’s gentle ministrations. He repeated the same process with Drift’s other hand, and the dual-colored mech readjusted his grip on the practice blades with an air almost like innocent wonder, like he was gaining a new appreciation for flexibility and movement in his body that he wasn’t used to. It was a thoughtfulness and curiosity that Wing suspected Drift didn’t allow himself to feel often, most likely in a very long time. 

He hated to drag Drift out of his self-inspecting reverie, so Wing took his time to pick up and readjust his grip on his blades before clearing his throat for Drift’s attention. He moved into a battle ready stance. “Let’s try this again. May I suggest focusing on the first subset of the sixth katas that I showed you yesterday?” 

“Yeah, sure,” his companion mumbled, shaking his head and relaxing into a ready position that was almost a mirror of Wing’s. The flyer was glad to see that Drift had indeed relaxed his joints a little more in accordance to Wing’s gentle, physical coaxing. Wing came at Drift with softer blows, purposefully making sure that he moved at Drift’s speed to make sure that he had firmly grasped the movements of this particular kata into his swordsmanship. They sparred slowly, emphasizing perfect movement over the speed of an attack. 

“Good, good!” Wing called encouragingly to Drift as the speedster moved his blade down to meet the hilt with Wing’s, and he stepped back. He needed to make sure that Drift corrected the movement to protect his exposed upper arm, and gently slapped the red and white armor with the flat of his blade in gentle admonishment-

Wing’s spark casing and fuel tank nearly dropped in horror when the armor gave an audible metallic crack and fell away into two jagged pieces. Underneath, a paint-enhanced line cut through the upper layer of Drift’s protoform, and bright pink energon began to bead up at the surface of the wound and mix with wet orange paint. It took Drift two agonizingly slow seconds to realize what had happened before he dropped to his knees and gritted out a hiss of pain between clenched denta, dropping the practice blades and grabbing roughly at his bleeding wound. Another second after Drift’s automatic response, Wing had dropped his own practice blades and pulled Drift into his arms quickly, with as much tenderness as concerned strength could afford him. The jostling was still painful for the reconstructed mech, though, but even more harrowing was the impending flight that he knew was coming. 

“Gotta get you to Redline,” Wing rasped absently, more to comfort himself, and tried to reciprocate the terrified teak in Drift’s EM field with a comforting pulse of his own as he raced for the med bay with all the power that his thrusters could afford him. “Hang on, Drift. You’ll be alright, just hang on.”


	2. Embrace

            “Spark pulse is stabilizing, energon flow is normal…soldering the wound’s prevented infection- WING, will you sit your carapace down?!” Redline barked at the pacing jet, who responded with a wide eyed, blank look and immediately shuffled onto a vacant repair slab, staring down at Drift’s prone, paint-free body. The Decepticon speedster lay in medical stasis, optics shuttered and an absent look on his face plates, almost peaceful. It didn’t sit right with Wing, but he trusted Redline’s abilities as a medic and wanted his charge repaired as quickly and thoroughly as possible. Patience may be a virtue he needed to continue working on…

            “Is he going to be alright?” Wing whimpered softly in concern, straining to look over Drift’s body for any other injuries that the medic may have missed.

            Redline gave a hum. “He’s fine now, but I want to run a diagnostic quickly to see what may have caused his plating to crack in the first place.” The red medic unspooled a data cable from a port in his arm and manually triggered Drift’s diagnostic port to open at his elbow before plugging in. His optics dimmed slightly while analyzing Drift’s bodily functions for any signs of trauma or harm. Wing drummed his fingers against the metal of the berth softly, waiting for Redline to finish his analysis.

            Finally, the medic emerged with a slight curse. “Magnesium deficiency,” he growled, returning the cord to his body. “Resulting in extensive metal fatigue, and in a fairly advanced stage as well.”

            “Would the magnesium deficiency be enough to cause Drift’s plating to crack?” Wing asked, a concerned frown furrowing his brow. He knew magnesium to be an important metal for a Cybertronian body, but had never quite educated himself to fully understand how it worked.

            Redline raised a brow at Wing before snorting. “Cracked plating is just a sign that portions of the upper layer of protoform have already been compromised. Sometimes during construction, the materials used are sub-par or aren’t manufactured with an even balance of metals and minerals. When the body can’t derive enough of a certain material that it needs for armor to function at maximum capacity, it can draw on, for sake of example, magnesium in the protoform to compensate. It makes the armor more brittle and the protoform much more susceptible to injury as a result.” Wing gave a distressed keen and hugged his arms to his torso. Redline approached and placed a comforting hand on the white Knight’s shoulder. “It isn’t your fault, Wing. The armor would’ve broken anyways, and might’ve caused him even more injury if we didn’t catch it now.”

            “I suppose.” Wing hunched his shoulders and ducked his head. “Still, I wish that Drift had mentioned it before, so that way we might’ve known.”

            “Well, I wish I had known when I was reformatting his body, so that I might have been able to fix it the last time with different armor that didn’t demand so much from him in the first place. There’s a possible reason why he didn’t tell any of us, though,” Redline offered, dropping his hand from Wing’s shoulder and pulling up a screen with Drift’s internal readings illuminated on it. “I would’ve been violating his patient-doctor confidentiality, but you’re his primary caregiver right now and should be informed about his chronic condition. Anyways,” he perused through a list of different functions and drew up one in particular. “Notice anything odd about his interfacing protocols?”

            Wing peered over Redline’s arm to glance at the medical jargon in confusion. The actual terms, he couldn’t understand, but he could see what the picture depicted. “It’s online right now? I thought he was in medical stasis.”

            “He is,” Redline confirmed. “I’ve seen this before in some mecha with impoverished histories like Drift, when we lived back on Cybertron. They didn’t have access to necessary supplements that could just be added to energon, not when they didn’t have ready access to energon to begin with. So,” the medic paused, scanning the chart for reference, “it might make sense that they’d go looking for what they needed elsewhere, and their interfacing protocols prime themselves to lessen the…discomfort.”

            “Where else could they find it, though, that would require interfacing?” Wing’s tanks churned in anticipation for an answer that he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear, but he forced himself.

            “Given the fact that Drift’s interface array was in such a sorry state when he came here that I had to replace most of the components,” Redline explained softly, disconnecting wires from Drift’s neck which had induced the stasis coding, “I can make a pretty sound assumption that he took what supplements he needed from a lot of transfluid, and quite often at that, since it’s very nutrient-rich. Fill in the blanks there with what you will.”

            Wing gave a soft trill of despair and ran the back of his fingers gently over Drift’s unresponsive brow, feeling the warm faceplates underneath him as the only comfort in such a grim situation. Poor Drift…he shifted his hand to run along the other mech’s dark cheek plate comfortingly. Wing was so absorbed in his own internal musings that he gave a violent start when Redline began disconnecting various pieces of armor from Drift’s body, exposing the dark grey protoform underneath. “H-hey!” he protested, prompting Redline to look up from his task. “What’re you doing?”

            “I can’t do much about repairing the protoform; that’ll have to come with supplements to his energon and self-repair,” Redline admitted, taking a piece of armor from Drift’s forearm. “I can, however, restore the metal integrity to some of his outer armor without bringing harm to Drift himself. This is where you come in.”

            “Okay, so what should I do?” Wing responded, eager to be able to help in any way that he could.

            “Speed-models like Drift need armor to help regulate their internal temperatures. Without it, he’s going to be more prone to temperature changes, especially to cold. You’ll need to find ways to maintain a warm body temperature for him,” Redline instructed, taking off pieces of compromised chest plating and shoulder armor before setting them aside. About half of Drift’s front had exposed protoform and energon lines now, and Wing was taken aback by just how many scars shone light gray against the dark metal, despite Redline’s repairs to his frame. The medic quickly covered the naked protoform with a medical tarp. “Thermal blankets and lots of fuel will be a must for him. I’d recommend oil baths, too, to help his self-repair and just make him more comfortable. I should have his armor repaired in a few days’ time.” As an afterthought, Redline grabbed a small metal canister from the counter and pushed it into Wing’s hand after giving it a shake to make sure that there was enough of the contents inside. “This is full of magnesium ribbon. When you can get him to refuel, grind a length of ribbon up and mix it in with mid-grade. No high-grade, interfacing, or training until after I give him the all clear, understand?”

            “Clearly,” Wing confirmed with a respectful bow to the medic, taking the canister and stowing it in subspace for the trip. He wasn’t necessarily sure how Drift would take the news later, when he finally woke up. High-grade didn’t seem to be a necessity for the grounder, but when he wasn’t training, casual interfacing did seem to be his go-to activity. “I can take Drift back to my hab suite now?”

            Redline grunted in response, more focused on testing out the armor that he’d removed. “No real need for him to be here with me, I suppose. Just be careful, and call me if you need anything. Drift will come out of medical stasis by the end of the day.”

            Wing another nod of thanks and, with as much delicacy as he could manage, tucked the tarp around Drift’s slumbering body before pulling him close, hooking one arm under his knees and another under broad shoulders. Even without a significant portion of his armor, Drift was still fairly heavy, but a burden that Wing would gladly bear anytime. With slow, steady steps, he began the trip from the med bay back to his more comfortable quarters. Even with his arms tucked against his chests and partially constrained by Wing’s embrace, Drift’s legs still swung slightly in their freedom with each of Wing’s steps, and his head lolled limply to the side. In response, Wing backed up against a wall and gently readjusted his arm so that Drift’s head relaxed against his forearm instead, lessening the strain on his neck cables.

            It took a rather ungraceful use of his elbows and peddes to get Wing’s door open, but he managed to side-step into the public living area of his quarters without disturbing Drift, and he was quick to set the slumbering mech on Wing’s own heavily padded birth, carefully readjusting the grounder on the thin cushion that usually kept Wing’s flight appendages from scraping against the metal. Setting Drift into a slightly curled position on his side, he took some of the smaller cushions and tucked them around Drift’s back, under his arms, and around his legs. His fingers ghosted over some of the scarred protoform on Drift’s thigh, and Wing felt an ache of sadness in his spark and the story that must’ve been behind that scar. So many scars must’ve held so many different stories that Drift would never divulge to him, and Wing would not press for him to relive such awful memories.

            Satisfied with the arrangement of the pillows to allow for maximum comfort, Wing gently tucked in the medical tarp provided by Redline before going to the small closet and carefully drew out a long, thick piece of woven organic cloth. It was one of his few personal possessions that remained from Cybertron: a finely designed thermal quilt from soft organic fabrics, displayed by a space-faring merchant in Iacon. The small, swirling patterns of gold and silver threads on a myriad of rainbow colors had lasted a long time without fading in color and was very warm on those nights when he needed to warm himself, but he kept it stored away periodically to help preserve it. Wing gently unfolded the large quilt and spread it over the stasis-bound mech, even making sure to cover Drift’s finials to keep his helm warm. It was more than large enough to cover all of Drift and should keep him warm enough.

His berth now looked like a gigantic, colorful, lumpy cuddle cushion that occasionally rose and fell with steady ventilations. If the situation hadn’t been so serious, he would’ve chirred in delight at the thought. Instead, with a sudden unbearable sense of tiredness, Wing slid onto the edge of his recharge berth and curled into a curve around, allowing his wings to hang off the edge while he laid his arms across (what he assumed to be) Drift’s middle. Unconsciously, the jet nestled his face into the quilt and pulled himself a little closer to the berth’s primary occupant. Cuddles were, after all, the best medicine for an aching spark. Finally given a chance to relax after the adrenaline rush of Drift’s injury and medical examination, Wing shuttered his optics and began ventilating calmly, manipulating his EM field into giving off a calm, secure teak that could mesh with Drift’s whenever he decided to wake. His last thought before recharge was that he’d wake up in just a few breems. 

* * *

 

A few breems, apparently, meant waking up with Drift at the end of the day cycle, when an artificial sunset poked through the drawn shutters of Wing’s bedroom and warmed his pedde plating. Wing was abruptly pulled from a much-needed recharge when he felt a lumpy bulk begin to stir under the berth covering, and he sat up onto his hip quickly. “Drift?” he asked softly. “I’m guessing you’re awake?”

The response was a non-articulated, slightly muffled grumble, but that was quickly accompanied by a sharp twist under the blankets of a mech trying to escape his cuddle cocoon. The shifting stopped quite suddenly. “Where’s my armor?” Drift demanded from under the covers. “What happened to my armor?!”

Wing wrapped his arms gently around the covered mech, trying to readjust his wings into a more comfortable position so that they weren’t bent under him. “You were in advanced stages of metal fatigue,” he explained calmly, sending a comforting pulse through his EM field to match Drift’s sluggish agitation. “Redline is going to repair it-“

“It was fine!” Drift replied with his usual defensive snarl, trying to twist himself out of Wing’s grip. He still hadn’t emerged from under the covers. “Let me out! I need my armor right now.”

“It won’t do you any good.” Wing didn’t even bother putting much strength behind his words because when Drift was in this sort of mood, it was like trying to tell a rock to start flying: completely pointless.

“Let. Me. Out!” Drift rearticulated, and the very tips of his audial fins poked out from under the covers before Wing grabbed some of the extra fabric and covered them again. “C’mon, Wing! I need my armor!”

“Drift,” Wing answered seriously. “I will sit on you if you keep trying to get out from under those covers.”

“Try it, lightweight,” the obscured grounder challenged, and Wing couldn’t help but smirk to himself. He was well-practiced in nesting and sitting on stubborn mechs; one look of his whimpering turbo-puppy optics at an injured and grumpy Dai Atlas could have him sitting comfortably on the giant’s immobile chest for a whole week if nothing dire came up. As Drift couldn’t _see_ him, however, that only left Wing with the option to just provide practical evidence. With a small grumble as he moved tired limbs, he pulled himself onto Drift’s twitching body and clamped his arms and legs around where he approximated Drift’s appendages to be. From the armor that he could feel through Drift’s warm coverings, he could safely guess that Drift was on his front and rendered immobile.

“It’s alright, Drift,” the jet crooned softly to the agitated, weakened grounder. “Redline will call us once your armor’s repaired. Just relax…”

“I told you, it was fine!” With a shake of his helm, Drift managed to reveal a small portion of his spiked helm to open air and twisted around to glare at an unrepentant Wing. “Seriously, you don’t need to fuss over me like I’m a sparkling.”

“Fuss over you like a sparkl- Drift, your conditioning could’ve been life threatening!” Wing, in a very rare moment, lost his nigh-infinite patience and spoke sharply to his ailing companion, settling down over Drift with as much weight that he knew the mech’s frame could handle. “If we hadn’t caught it in time, your plating could’ve shattered into your protoform.”

“I had it under control,” Drift growled right back, his blue optics flashing in impatience. “Seriously, I knew what I had to do.” Wing snapped like a taught light-lute string.

“What? WHAT were you going to possibly do?!” Wing demanded with a hysterical cry. “Turn yourself into a frag toy just to get the supplements that you needed?!” Drift stared back at the trembling Wing silently, evenly, and that was all the confirmation that Wing could’ve ever needed. “We don’t DO that here! If you had just told us, we could’ve given you the supplements that you would’ve needed without a hassle. Damnit, Drift! You and your stubbornness could’ve gotten you KILLED!”

Thoroughly distressed, Wing buried his face into the quilt while clamping down in a vice-like grip on Drift’s main body and let loose a shuddering cry into the thick blanket. He clenched his fists while his optics shut stubbornly to try to stem the angry tears that were leaking out of his optic cleanser ducts. In his head, a moody Dai Atlas was frowning and starting to say something about how Knights always had a firm grip on their emotions, but Wing shoved the thought aside. Scrap being a Knight right now, he was scared. Scared and angry at himself for having neglected the grounder’s needs, but mostly scared for Drift for almost forcing himself to do something that he shouldn’t have had to do in the first place.

Drift said nothing in response to Wing’s emotional tirade, simply staring at the jet’s loss of composure with an odd look in his optics and a twisting, uncomfortable feeling in his spark. Venting softly, Drift managed to flip himself over and experimented moving his tired, unarmored limbs by reaching around Wing’s body with the ample fabric of the quilt and pulling the traumatized white jet into a tight, awkward hug against Drift’s chest. He moved one padded hand to the back of Wing’s helm and gently rubbed the soft, comfortingly thick blanket over the fins on his head slowly, in what he could only surmise was a comforting gesture. Wing’s ventilations still shuddered as he sobbed into the blanket, but he could the processor power to return Drift’s hug, nuzzling his faceplates under Drift’s chin. “I’m sorry,” he sighed guiltily into Wing’s audial, tucking the jet’s head more firmly under his chin. “I didn’t want you to worry about me.”

Wing slowly raised his head to blink teary golden optics at his companion. “Oh, Drift,” he replied softly, rubbing noses softly with Drift and consequently leaving tear-stains on the other mech’s face. “I’ll always worry about you. I care about you, so much…” The jet trailed off and nestled more comfortably against Drift’s torso, placing a soft kiss to the other mech’s lips. Drift reciprocated in kind, ignoring the insistent, growing heat from his interfacing panel. Now was not the time for fragging; it didn’t seem appropriate right now.

The two of them lay there on the berth in silence until long after the light had shifted from sunset into full-blown nighttime. Soft lighting self-illuminated by Wing’s door, but left the two of them in a comfortable darkness. Their emotions smoothed out with their EM fields enmeshed together, just savoring the other’s silent companionship and warmth. All the noise that was in the room came from their calming ventilations. It was a soothing balm after such an emotional episode between the two of them.

“Drift?” Wing finally asked softly, after quite some time had passed, and Drift responded with a hum. “Have you always had a magnesium deficiency?”

“Oh…yeah, I guess,” the grounder admitted after a moment’s thought. “It was just a thing for gutter-mechs, I guess.”

“Oh,” the comforting white jet on his chest responded with a vent. “Did a lot of them…was it common for mechs with mineral deficiencies to…umm…” he trailed off sheepishly, not quite meeting Drift’s optics.

He almost chuckled at the Knight’s shyness with the subject. He’d accepted the situation long ago. “Yeah, it was just a thing in the Dead End. No supplements were around, and when we got them, a lot of mechs couldn’t hold down the energon. It didn’t mix well with circuit boosters, see?” Wing’s silent response was a shifting tightness in his arms to hold onto Drift like a lifeline. “So if you had a physical problem like that, you could usually find a sympathetic gutter-mech or someone looking to pay for a frag. Just so long as you got what you needed-“

“Yes, I understand,” Wing whispered into the blanket, interrupting and nuzzling Drift. “We have more than enough here. If you’re having a problem like that, you don’t have to be afraid.”

Easy for Wing to say, Drift thought with just a hint of bitterness. He’d never been outright targeted by stronger mecha for such an obvious weakness. Still, he only responded by reaching his helm up and planting a kiss onto the small golden embellishment at the center of Wing’s brow. Wing was fortunate, he mused silently while contemplating the silent Knight. He’d never have to experience the hardships that Drift had been born into. He’d remain his beautiful, smart, albeit naïve self; a light in the darkness for those hopeless war brutes like himself to vainly flit towards like organic moths to an open flame. It was dangerous, but he couldn’t help his hopeless addiction to the jet’s affections.

Finally, Wing sat up slowly, sliding to Drift’s side as he got a thoughtful look into his optics. “I think I might have an idea to make you feel better,” he muttered haltingly, like he was choosing his words carefully. “It may be a little risky, and we can’t be seen…”

“Eh?” Drift sat up and shivered as a blast of outside air hit his back-strut. He tucked Wing’s techni-color quilt around himself a little tighter in response. “Y-you have my attention,” the grounder chattered with slightly gritted denta, trying to suppress his shivers. With his trademark illuminating grin, Wing readjusted the quilt over Drift’s back and up over his helm, covering his sensitive fins before pulling the mech to his feet.

“Come with me. We’re sneaking out.”     

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this chapter turned into a little more of a cuddly, 3,000+ word monster than I originally imagined. Still, I hope it's nice. Thank you all for your encouragement and constructive criticisms. I hope this chapter is suitable repayment for all of your support.


	3. Healing

            Of course, Wing’s idea of “sneaking out” seemed to be very different from Drift’s interpretation of the phrase. To Drift, it would mean bypassing security mechs, clinging to the shadows, dodging gunfire while making a desperate bid for freedom. Wing had the ‘clinging to the shadows’ somewhat conceptualized, but they were still moving away from the apparent entrance to New Crystal City. Drift’s own displeasure was drowned out by a blast of cold air to his face from outside his thermal blanket-cloak.

Wing had insistently tightly wrapped him in the medical covering before taking to the air, foregoing his own very comfortable quilt because it was too bulky and cumbersome to carry Drift in for the distance that they were going (which was a little bit of a shame, because Drift grudgingly had to admit that he liked the feel of the soft, organic material on his naked protoform). He grabbed the edge of the material in his denta and dragged the flap back over himself. General discomfort he could manage, but even Drift freely admitted that he absolutely despised cold temperatures.

            A soft chirr from Wing had Drift take a quick peak out at the smiling jet’s face as they finally set down after flying for a long time. Kind, humored golden optics were the only real source of lighting in the shadows of the enormous cavern walls. Normally, the cold and the dark would’ve been a source of fear for Drift, pressing in on him in a suffocating manner, inspired by generations of suffering and pain in Rodion. That kind golden glow, though, was a beacon in that hopelessness; Wing was protecting him, guiding him in this strange new place, providing him with warmth in the form of his own purring engines and the thermal tarp. The jet gently embraced his shoulders and brought Drift forward, and he followed with slow, shuffling steps. The cold stones under his feet was only staved off by the fact that he still had his pedde armor.

            “When New Crystal City was still being built,” Wing explained softly, whispering in the dark, “I was sent out to with another mech to scout the surrounding caves to make sure that everything was structurally sound and it wouldn’t collapse on us at any minute. What we found in those caves was something else, though.” They stopped at a blank expanse of war with a large, round boulder sitting too innocently, very out of place along the smaller gravel pebbles. “Wait here; I’ve got this,” Wing instructed, gently pushing Drift against the wall before moving to the rock and beginning to push at the boulder.

            “We *huff* found a series of…geothermal springs *huff* that are beneficial to *hurk* protoform and armor health,” the jet ground out as he pushed at the rock with all his strength, shoving it aside to reveal a maw-like cave. Reaching out with his hand, he guided a silently inquisitive Drift into the darkness, shining a soft light to illuminate a thin pathway between winding, natural stone corridors. “Seabreeze and I had a bit of a disagreement on what we should do with the discovery. I wanted to allow open access to the springs for whoever wanted or needed them, but Seabreeze argued that they needed to be properly maintained, so access should be charged and regulated.” The jet gave a very rare, non-sincere smile at the memory that didn’t seem to sit well on his faceplates. “Dai Atlas favored Seabreeze because he wanted to distance the Knights from so-called ‘luxuries and extravagances’, and he made it into a health retreat.”

            “That sounds like something Neutral pacifists would enjoy,” Drift grumbled crossly. It was irrational, really, that his anger wasn’t more encompassing of the fact that the New Crystal City mecha could afford to squabble about something as inconsequential as a few mineral baths. No, his anger was more directed at the one mech that was the source of Wing’s ire; he’d only just heard of this Seabreeze, never had met the mech personally, but he’d made Wing unhappy and that immediately marked him as a mech that Drift would never like.

Preoccupied with his illogical thoughts, he couldn’t stop himself from bumping his face into a broad stalactite that he hadn’t managed to see in time. Drift stumbled backwards as the plating around his nose smarted, making him squint his optics, but Wing glided forward weightlessly and gently cupped his face to check the damage before planting a gentle kiss over the scuffed plating. A hum of pleasure escaped Drift’s vocalizer before he could restrain his reaction, but those lip plates felt so good that he pressed into Wing’s kiss semi-consciously. The two pressed their helms together before Wing joined their hands with a radiant smile and continued on their journey.

            “The thing is, though, that I think that Seabreeze, even as a worthy business proprietor, is charging far too much for access to those springs. I tried to talk with him gently about it, then non-violent protest…and I got myself banned from going near the springs outright,” the Knight sighed wistfully at the memories. “So, I found an alternative.”

            “So what, we’re sneaking into this creep’s place for a free bath?” Drift knew that Wing was a little bit more adventurous and rebellious than the typical calm, neutral Knight. Openly breaking the rules, outside of venturing to the surface? Somehow, he just couldn’t quite envision it.

            “No, I’ve respected the decision for me to not go back to the main springs,” Wing admitted (because of course he had; otherwise, he’d lose his saint-like persona), turning a bend into a dimply lit cavern. “I found my own.”

            Drift was absolutely floored; it felt like his spark had stopped beating for a few kliks. An enormous geode cavern spread out into the distance before him, illuminated by the soft glow of fluorescent blue crystalline spires that jutted out from slick white stone at different angles. The two of them stood on a small ledge overlooking a series of expansive, steaming pools of some clear blue liquid, shimmering blue under the light of those natural fluorescent crystals. Large, broken fragments of crystal lay interspersed throughout the pools as some sort of natural feature that just added to the serene atmosphere. In the back of the cave, he could barely make out the rush of a waterfall; the front of the cave where he and Wing looked out was almost silent, save for the telltale drops from the stalactites and crystals on the ceiling and into the pools or rocks below. Belatedly, Drift realized that the air was being heated from the pools below him, and he didn’t feel chilly under the medical blanket anymore.

If New Crystal City was supposed to be a Golden Age utopia, then this natural wonder could only be what rejoining the Allspark was meant to be: absolute beauty, solitude from the strife and harshness of war. Calm, silence, and safety. _Peace_. There was a strain of cables along the sides of his face, and Drift vaguely realized that his lower jaw had dropped open in shock at the sight. In the corner of his vision, Wing stared in expectation, bordering on concern. “Wing,” Drift could only gasp in shock, taking in every detail that he could manage. “This is…frag, Wing…”

“Do you like it?” In the dim blue lighting, he could just barely make out the flush on the very tips of Wing’s helm finials when the jet looked down at his hands. “I understand if you don’t…it doesn’t really seem like your kind of thing. I just thought that it might make you feel a little better and get you out of the Citadel for a little while and-“ The Knight’s uncharacteristic nervous babbling was silenced by the gentle press of a finger to his lip plates, and he stared up at his Decepticon guest.

“It’s great,” Drift whispered. “You make it perfect.” For the first time in a long time, he offered his least-threatening, most sincere smile to Wing. “Thank you.” It took a moment for the jet to come to his senses, but optics gave a small flash and he beamed, further illuminating the cave. He took Drift’s hand (which was still inside his comfortable, unnecessary, thermal blanket-cloak) and led him down a steep and narrow walkway to the floor of the cavern. A smaller metal chest was the only evidence that someone had actually discovered this place.

“I’ll take that,” Wing offered, gently relieving Drift of his blanket armor with almost ceremonial grace. Here in the blue light of the cavern, every light scratch and patch of scar metal stuck out in stark contrast to the dark grey protoform; he couldn’t hide his violent past in here, but in the setting and the mood, it didn’t seem to define him. Here, with no one else around, there was no judgment to who he’d been before coming to New Crystal City, and it provided a certain relieving balm to the guilt that had a habit of resurfacing in his processors. Wing folded the blanket neatly and setting it on a dry patch of floor. “Now, don’t go in quite yet!” he called behind him as he knelt down to open the chest, causing Drift to pause before he’d even approached the pools. The speedster froze, taking the opportunity to stare at wings that were quivering with excitement. They were nigh irresistible at that angle… Wing stood up again, holding a bucket and a cloth in one hand. “We need to wash off before we get in.”

Impatience flared in Drift’s EM field. It was so comfortable in here, and he could only imagine how those pools would feel. Hopefully, more soothing than an oil bath. “Why?” he demanded, ruffling what little armor was left on his shoulders and upper back, around his hips, and down at his peddes.

“I just find that you get more of an experience if you wash off your body first with some cool solvent.” Wing got that misty look in his optics when he was teaching one of his vaguely-worded lessons that sounded like one of the analects from the Covenant of Primus. “It symbolizes washing away the worries of the outside world, and becoming more in tune with your natural sanctuary as well as more aware of your own thoughts.” He gave a humored snort and a wide-eyed look as Drift aimed a disbelieving frown at him. “Just humor me? Please?” He stuck out his lower lip-plate for good measure.

Frag, not even Megatron or the DJD could possibly resist that face. What chance could Drift possibly have? “Why not?” he huffed, stepping back towards Wing and flaring his new white plating to let Wing start washing him, but to his surprise, Wing just set down the bucket and exposed his back to Drift.

“Help me, please?” There was the tell-tale sound of unlocking hinges, and various pieces of Wing’s puffed out away from his protoform, including his Great Sword. Drift froze before he could fully extend his arm to help. Drift’s own armor was supposed to be rough and ragged, made to withstand blasts from cannons and bear the scars for it. Wing was a warrior, but his armor plates was comparatively smooth, gleaming and white, healthy and unmarred by scars and evidence of war. He looked and felt so pure, innocent. It’s with this comparison in mind that Drift laid a reverent hand on a piece of Wing’s shoulder armor that had been disengaged from the rest of his body and lifted it off its hinge. He set it on the ground slowly before reaching up for the corresponding armor on the opposite shoulder. His fourth and fifth finger-digits brushed against smooth protoform, making the jet shudder. Drift’s EM field was gently caressed with a soft brush of bliss from Wing, which he responded to with a soft caress of one of his shoulder-thrusters. Wing’s entire frame rattled, and he smiled back at the grounder with hazy golden optics.

Piece by piece of gleaming white armor was pulled off in a similar manner until Wing was just as exposed as Drift, with just as much gentleness and exchanges of touches. Finally, with a soft nod from Wing, they both lifted the Great Sword from its back-bracket and set it against a crystal leaning against the wall. When the light-nexus at the hilt of the sword shone against the crystal, it looked like every other crystal in the cave glowed that much brighter.

Fans had kicked on for the both of them, but Wing gently placed his flat palm over Drift’s spark-chamber. “We’ll rinse off before the bath now,” he whispered, picking up the bucket and slinging the cloth over his elbow. “Brace yourself,” was all the warning that Drift got before he upended the bucket of solvent over Drift’s head and down his shoulders.

In reality, it was lukewarm; for Drift’s weakened protoform, it was cold as liquid nitrogen, and he actually yelped at the cascade of liquid over his body. He crouched and hugged his arms to his barely armored chest, shivering at the cold shock to his systems, his dental bands chattering very audibly. “Gaaah,” was all that he could moan out in discomfort before a pair of hands gently pressed his helm against a lightly armored belly. The cloth began rubbing over each helm-fin meticulously, wiping away excess cold solvent. His twitching optics widened and his forehead tingled from the gentle rumble of fuel tanks. It felt oddly pleasant against the sensitive protoform of his brow.

“I’m sorry, Drift,” Wing whispered gently and contritely. He continued his gentle ministrations to wipe the solvent over and away from Drift’s body. “It’s a little more…efficient if you just get it done in one go.” He let out an unsteady chuckle when Drift unconsciously hugged his waist with one arm. “Baptism by fire, eh?” he weakly chuckled before spluttering in surprise when Drift took another bucket of solvent and blindly tossed it against Wing’s lower back.

“Baptism by ice, more like,” Drift grumbled with a flash of humor in his blue optics, grabbing the sopping cloth from Wing’s hands and rubbing it across his face. The two of them spluttered and laughed together, wiping each other down and shaking solvent off their body.

“I’ll put this away,” Wing offered, shaking his helm and spraying Drift with another flurry of solvent droplets. The jet picked up the now-empty buckets and gently set them back down near his supply chest before standing up to face Drift. “Wait, Drift!” he tried to reach out to the curious grounder who was sticking his pedde into one of the pools. “It’s a little bit-“ Too late, there was a squawk of surprise and a monumental splash. “-deeper than you think,” he finished lamely, walking serenely to the main cave pool where Drift had fallen in. The jet crouched and slid into the water before grabbing a thrashing hand. “Stay calm,” he encouraged softly before dragging Drift back to the rim and setting his hand there comfortingly.

Drift latched onto the rim of the pool with Wing, spraying mineral-rich fluid from his intake and awkwardly kicking his peddes in the warm liquid. The flyer had the grace to not burst into gales of laughter, but he did give a soft giggle and leaned against Drift’s shoulder gently. “Just relax,” the Knight encouraged softly, shuttering his optics in peaceful bliss. “Empty your processors and just feel the world around you.” He took a deep invent of heated, steamy air. Beside him, Drift seemed to have calmed and looked to be mimicking Wing’s movement. Normally, the ex-Decepticon seemed to scoff at any of the non-violent lessons that Wing wanted to teach him, so his spark soared to see Drift actually giving his advice a chance.

“My dermal layer’s all tingly,” Drift mumbled, scrunching his optics shut at the tingling sensation. Wing leaned his head on his hand and look to his companion.

“Does it hurt?”

“…no, it doesn’t. Just feels weird,” the bi-colored mech described, staring at his arms.

“The pools are rich with many different minerals,” Wing explained. “Magnesium is prominent among the ones that I found here; your repair nanites are drawing in on what materials it can to start repairing itself. The jet pulled a cube of pink Energon from his subspace and handed it to Drift. “Here. It has magnesium already added to it.”

With a small hum of thanks, Drift held the cube in one hand and took a sip of the slightly gritty liquid, sipping down the crushed magnesium ribbon and regular fuel quickly. Another one was pushed into his hands quickly with a soft, innocent smile in return, and he drank this cube a little slower. Wing pulled out his own cube of mid-grade and joined Drift for fuel in relative silence, feeling the warmth of the mineral-rich pool seep into their frames. The both of them let out a simultaneous, relaxed sigh.

It just felt so new and strange to Drift: suspended in a healing tank that wasn’t some sort of CR chamber, having a plentiful supply of the fuel that he needed to get back into optimal physical condition, being in the company of someone that he was certain wouldn’t stab him in the back, and not having to worry about getting into trouble or being interrupted or threatened in any feasible manner. There were no real expectations here right now, just to fuel and heal. He hadn’t ever felt this safe in the Dead End; not even in the Decepticons, where he had a certain amount of power and a dangerous reputation.

Wing was right; this place was a real sanctuary. Gasket would’ve loved it here.

At the thought of his old friend, his first real friend in his long and tortured life, Drift’s optics dimmed in well-practiced grief, and his hands started to tremble around the energon cube. ‘ _No, no_ ,’ he thought to himself, trying to stop the grief-stricken shudders. ‘ _Don’t cry, not here. It’s not the place, not the time._ ’

‘ ** _Weak_.** ’ In the very back of his processors, that snarling presence that was Deadlock sneered at him. _‘ **You will always be weak. I’m the superior one of us; you’re a pathetic weakling, just like back in Rodion.**_ ’

‘ _Stop,_ ’ Drift internally begged, and that leering, sneering visage of his Decepticon persona morphed into something far uglier: the shadowy abomination of so many leering, lusting faces that bore down on his soul with villainous intent. Their long-dead fields pulsed with heavy desire for their own satisfaction; Drift’s benefits and needs weren’t anywhere in their processors in terms of a priority. He hunched over on himself, feeling cold and nauseous despite his warm environment. The cube dropped from his hands with a clatter. 

The specters' shadowy clawed hands reached for him, and Deadlock still spoke. ‘ ** _You couldn’t protect Gasket; you couldn’t protect any of them. They deserved to die for your weakness_**.’

“ _No_ ,” Drift whimpered aloud, still lost in his own traumatizing thoughts. A spectral hand grabbed him roughly by the neck cables while another reached for his interface panel.

‘ ** _You haven’t changed, little buymech, have you_**?” Deadlock’s twisted cackle rang like temple bells throughout Drift’s processor. ‘ ** _I’m the better of us. I was the one who the Decepticons followed, who the Autobots ran from. You’ll never have that authority because you are still weak._** ’ More phantom servos reached to grope at Drift, and he tried to twist out of their all-too-real grip. ‘ ** _You’ll always be weak_**.’

“ _NO!_ ” Drift wailed when he felt something touch his spark casing.

“Drift!” A sweet, urgent voice rang through his audials, and liquid warmth flooded over Drift’s face plates, the mineral-heavy water hitting the glass of his optics (blue, he reminded himself, no longer nightmarish red or starving yellow) and he shuttered them instantly. He was wrenched upwards by a pair of practiced arms from the dunking, where he coughed and choked and sobbed with his face pressed against a warm chassis. Drift reset his optics a few times to bring himself properly back to the world of the functioning and away from his own twisted and tortured processor. He sought his physical anchor with firm clenches of his hands, spreading his trembling fingers over glossy white plating. Wing’s field overwhelmed Drift completely, pulsing a sense of calm, comfort, and security. He welcomed that smothering EM field gratefully, letting it engulf him.

Regaining a sense of physical self, Drift looked around. He couldn’t see much beyond the broad chassis in his field of vision, but he knew that he was still up against the rim of the hot spring in Wing’s tight embrace, his cheek pressed directly over Wing’s spark chamber. He marveled at such intimate contact, feeling that life-giving, life-saving force beat in a steady rhythm. The lower, darker half of his body lay in neutral buoyancy in the healing waters of the hot spring. He craned his neck to look up and met golden optics that were bright with concern.

“Are you alright?” Wing whispered gently, leaning his face close to Drift’s but not initiating closer contact. Drift gave a mumble and a nod, realizing that coolant tears were trailing absently from the edges of his optics, and he couldn’t bring himself to stop them. With a closing of arms around him, Wing gently pushed away from the wall and tread water purposefully, keeping Drift tucked close as they made for a shallow rise with a large crystal protruding from the water. Drift clung to Wing numbly as they swam the short distance before clumsily climbing up onto the smooth crystal surface, letting his legs and arms dangle over the side and into the pool. He lay almost parallel with the surface, close enough that he could smell the metallic fumes rising with the steam. Wing slid onto the other end of the crystal with considerably more grace, resting his head on one hand. The other, he set under Drift’s cheek as a buffer from the cooler crystal surface. Optic cleaner tears ran against his hand from where Drift had still not completely composed himself.

“Would you like to talk about it?” the jet ventured, his thumb rubbing against one of Drift’s curved helm crests.

“Not really,” the grounder responded, leaning into Wing’s hand and the petting. He let his eyes stay trained on the glowing crystal under him, marveling at how his own blue optics melded with the crystal perfectly in his reflection. “Really tired,” he slurred, embracing the pulsing glow that so matched Too Pure for this World’s nexus pulse. It seemed to pull Drift away from his own nightmares and demons that manifested in Deadlock, his ever-present shadow. 

“How’re your fuel levels?” Wing asked quietly, staring at Drift in a way similar to how Drift was being lulled by the crystal.

“Full tank,” he responded with an absent rasp. Oh, how his warm, resting rock felt good along with the tingle of nanites drawing in the minerals and metals he needed through his arms. Wing mentioned something about waking him up and continued to caress his helm, but Drift was already too far gone, softly drawn into an entranced state, then recharge by the crystal that felt so much like himself and the Great Sword, but most of all like Wing’s own spark.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wandered through the Internet and started finding out about onsen, or Japanese hot springs that serve as public bathing areas. I've always wanted to go to an onsen (because a lot of American hot springs are just noisy and loud), and the healing aspect of the onsen inspired me to write this fic. I don't know, it just kind of seemed like something that Wing would enjoy and would want to show Drift.   
> American interpretation of Japanese culture...this could only go so well. xD


	4. Reinvigorated

            Something slow, gentle, and warm running along Drift’s cheek-guards brought him slowly and lazily out of an extremely relaxing, dreamless recharge. He was warm, fueled up, and wasn’t surrounded by a need to protect oneself at all hours. The foreign field pulsing against his own only promised safety and affection. It was the first time in many centuries that Drift had woken up to such a peaceful setting. He flicked on his optics to watch Wing sitting above him, running the back of one of his smooth hands against his brow and cheeks, eliciting an unconscious purr from Drift’s engines. The jet, who seemed to have been in his own trance-like meditation, came back to reality with a slight jerk and looked down, stopping his gentle petting.

            “Hello,” Wing whispered softly. “Did you have a satisfactory rest?”

            “Mmhm,” the darker grounder mumbled the affirmative, butting his head against the lowered hand to try to recreate the petting sensation (and Drift’s actively seeking out of such tender ministrations still made his processor stall a little). “Didn’t keep you up, did I?”

            With a small giggle, Wing resumed his caresses of Drift’s helm. “No, I spent some time in meditation and recharge. You were only recharging for a few hours anyways. How do you feel?”

            Drift concentrated on his well-sated body and ran a diagnostic of his systems. “Full tank, no malfunctions, protoform is in recovery stage. All in all, it looks good.”

            The look of relief that passed over Wing’s face was radiating. He folded at the waist to better embrace Drift around the shoulders, which must’ve been uncomfortable as Pit, but Drift wasn’t going to complain right now. “I’m so glad this worked so well for you,” he whispered into the speedster’s audial with a soft kiss.

            “Well, you may have helped a little,” Drift admitted with a smirk and blush, returning the kiss to Wing’s audial flare with a little nibble along the edge.

            The flying Knight sat up, mock-insulted and humor glimmering in his golden optics. “I _may_ have helped? Well, if you’re going to be like that…” Without warning, Drift was tipped over the side of the crystal and into the warm water, fully awakening him and causing him to release a squawk from his vocalizer. Wing flipped over the other side of the crystal before smacking the water with his hand and sending a deluge over Drift’s helm. The other Cybertronian shook his head, spraying water in every direction before another tidal wave engulfed him.

            Drift was suspended neutrally in the large cavern pool, letting the warm currents from the water glide over his protoform in pleasant tingles, letting his processors catch up with him. Wing was aiming water-based projectiles at him, like in a battle, but…they weren’t really fighting. It was more playful, but how should he respond? Drift couldn’t really remember the last time that he had fun with anything regarding fighting. Sure, the Decepticon battles were invigorating and he would get caught up in the fervor like everyone else, and they may have felt good at the start because of the power rush that he got…but that didn’t mean that he actively enjoyed all the fighting and killing. Was he even supposed to have fun?

            Only one way to find out: Drift surged up out of the water in a burst of life and slid the flat of his palm at an angle across the surface, sending a narrow wave over the crystal and making his opponent/partner squeal. That little squeal of pleasant surprise sent a rush of something through Drift’s spark; like battle rage, but less intense and aggressive, more relaxed and…happy. Yes, he felt happy to have surprised Wing that way. It felt good, and he let out a long-unused bark of honest laughter. Of course, Wing reciprocated with another deluge that Drift was barely able to match in time, and the two of them swam after each other, spraying water from slaps of their palms or occasionally (and Drift was happy to admit that he started the trend) taking a large amount into their intake and spraying it in a mixture of a waterspout and mist at their opponent’s face. They danced around each other in the water, exchanging laughs and teasing comments.

            Wing suddenly took an intake of air and plunged below the surface, leaving Drift alone to tread water, gently kicking his legs and moving his hands languidly to keep himself afloat. He turned his helm quickly to see where the white jet could’ve possibly gotten to, then peered down into the water. Unfortunately, their water battle had stirred up some sand and grit at the bottom of the deep pool, leaving the blue water murky with pale sediment and letting Wing blend into the environment. The water also prevented Drift from reaching his EM field too far out to be able to sense Wing. “Where are you?” the Decepticon grumbled gently, looking around for any sign of the jet-

            That came too late, as strong arms fastened around his middle when Wing rocketed upwards from behind with a whoop, startling Drift and preventing him from using well-practiced battle instincts when he had been ambushed. The two of them tipped backward to lay flat on the surface of the water, Wing’s slender wings outstretched to add surface area and keep them from sinking too far. Drift’s legs hung out into the churning water off of Wing’s hip while the Knight supported his less-armored torso against him with a bright smile on his face.

            Drift couldn’t help himself with the infectious good mood, and he smiled back at Wing, fanged denta and all. A wet hand reached down to rest on Drift’s cheek, water droplets tracing down over the plating to drip off of his chin. “You’re so beautiful when you smile, Drift,” Wing whispered in the cave that still echoed with the sounds of their laughter together. He gently kicked his feet to direct them towards a shallow sandbar, and they settled down with water barely covering their legs and abdomens while clutching at each other.

            It was perhaps the most comfortable situation Drift had encountered since his arrival in New Crystal City. No judgments from other Knights, no being gawked at like an alien creature, no training and subsequent humiliation. It was just Wing and himself, confined in a comfortable solitude. He lay on top of Wing’s chest with his head against the other’s spark chamber, ventilating in time with each other. He hugged Wing around the middle while Wing’s hands lay draped over Drift’s shoulders, rubbing them softly with the pads of his fingers. They didn’t have to move anywhere or do anything but just relax there, comfortable in their thoughts and each other’s’ company.

            “Did you really mean that?” Drift murmured into Wing’s chest plates, feeling the warmth of his spark against his lip-plates. “That I look good when I smile?”

            Wing craned his neck up to look over his chest into Drift’s eyes, completely serious. “Not just good. You look _beautiful_ ,” he re-emphasized the word, bringing one hand up to cradle the grounder’s helm and rub behind a helm fin. “Especially when you smile.”

            Drift’s face heated in an all-consuming blush and he ducked his head to look at his gleaming reflection in Wing’s armor. Blue optics stared back at him, but even his warped reflection looked a bit too much like the gleeful snarl of Deadlock to leave Drift comfortable. “Can’t really believe it,” he mumbled, his ex-vents fogging up the glimmering white armor. “Only ever been talked about as a gutter-mech, a pleasure bot, a soldier…or a monster.” The fog and steam over the armor hid the image of that cruel, twisted face with its hateful red eyes.

            Wing sat up on one elbow but kept Drift in place on his chest-plates with that hand around his helm-fin. He looked at Drift with…not pity, but a certain amount of sadness. “It’s a shame, really,” the Knight observed, making Drift look up at him. “The fact that nobody could see past their own first impressions to really know who you are, to know that there’s so much more beyond your appearance.”

            “You just said that I looked good when I smiled,” Drift countered, frowning slightly. “A bit hypocritical, aren’t you?”

            Wing just shook his head, smiling serenely. “I don’t just mean on the surface, Drift. When you smile, you let your real self, your _soul_ be seen. That makes you look and feel wonderful.” The jet cupped Drift’s head in his hands softly, around both of his cheek guards. “When I see you smile, it’s like…like when I sneak up to the surface to look at the sun or the stars, or find someplace like this cave here.” He brought their nasal ridges together, optic to optic. “You’re more than you seem at first glance. That’s what really makes you so beautiful, Drift.”

            Drift yearned to believe Wing. With all his spark, he hung onto every single word the jet said, committing them to memory. He wanted, so very much, to replace every single harsh instance from his past when he’d been referred to as trash, a frag toy, an ideal soldier, or a sparkless murderer and let the soothing balm of Wing’s assurance wash them away. No matter how hard he tried, though, they never would go away. That pain would still always feel like raw, bleeding wounds across his processor, but to see how Wing so readily _believed in him_ to be more than how others labelled him…it was enough for a pause. Maybe…maybe Wing was right. Maybe there was more to him than a label.

            “Drift, may I please tell you what I see when I really look at you?” Wing whispered, his breath a feather-light touch across his blushing cheek-plates. Drift just nodded silently, staring deep into Wing’s golden optics for any sign that the jet might just be paying him lip-service and finding none. “I see a mech who has survived everything that life’s thrown at him, someone who won’t be limited by what anyone tells him that he is. I see a mech who embodies freedom itself.”

            “That sounds so cheesy,” Drift whispered hoarsely and emotionally into Wing’s audial, kissing his cheek. “I think you might be onto something there, though. Maybe. Not quite saying that I believe you. Just…you know.”

            The smile that Wing delivered was like seeing the sun after spending centuries in the dark: absolutely bright and brilliant, and potentially painful on either the recipient or the deliverer. Their lips crashed together simultaneously, the both of them moaning into the other’s mouth while glossa tangled together. The two of them pressed their helms together, feeling out the other’s EM field, savoring the happiness and affection. To Drift, this was better than any high that could be achieved by circuit boosters or Syk. This was purely natural, a pleasure that he could control and couldn’t leave any side effects aside from a nice overload, if he was lucky.

            Wing drew back from Drift’s mouth, and Drift tried to recapture his lips passionately, but the jet just sighed wistfully, shifted around to lay Drift’s helm in his lap, and placed his hands on the top of Drift’s helm and began rubbing small circles over the smooth plating with the tips of his fingers. It…. _ooh_ , that felt really _nice_. It sent pleasant little tingles along his dermal layer and into his spinal strut, down to the tips of his hands and peddes and making his remaining armor plating flare and twitch. Drift gave a soft sigh and tried to say something to Wing about how nice it felt, how he didn’t want those fingers to stop because by Primus it felt wonderful; however, the jet touched a fingertip to Drift’s lips, silencing him. “I may not be able to interface you right now,” the white jet whispered, optics twinkling with content, “but I can still make you feel good.”

            “Always do,” Drift sighed as Wing resumed massaging his forehead. Gentle nudges over the dermal layer and plating and then the smoothing over by the back of those fingers was a heavenly delight that coincided with the sinful pleasure that the two of them experienced during any given time in the berth. One was as rich and heady as a fine high-grade, sending heat and intent through every circuit and eliciting charged reactions; the other was the soft presence of a good-tasting med-grade, relaxing and revitalizing damaged systems, cooling stressed and heated lines. This sensation, provided by Wing and those Primus-blessed fingers of his, was the most relaxing version of the latter that Drift could recall experiencing at any point in his life.

            The fingers at his temples slowly drifted downwards to around his optics, moving to the arches of his cheeks and up to his eye ridge, then circling to the outer edges of his nasal ridge. Drift could almost feel the tips of those fingers on the optics themselves, but it certainly wasn’t an uncomfortable sensation. If anything, the slow, steady manner in which Wing was massaging his face was further relaxing him into a lull. The heel of Wing’s palms gently pressed themselves over Drift’s flickering optics before the fingers resumed ministrations on his cheek and jawline, and even the darkness didn’t do anything to convince Drift that he was in any danger. How much of a danger could Wing be right now, when everything that he was doing seemed specifically designed to make every iota of his being feel _this good_?

            A soft brush of lips at the tip of a helm crest heightened Drift’s awareness slightly. “Drift, we should be going,” Wing whispered quietly. “It’s almost dawn, and I’d like to return to the Citadel before anyone notices that we’re gone. Can you stand?”

            They had to leave? Already? It only seemed like they had just arrived at this place, and he wanted to protest; however, Drift checked his chronometer and discovered that yes, they’d been in there for most of the night, and New Crystal City’s simulated dawn was fast approaching. With a soft, pacified grunt, he sat up from Wing’s lap and knelt before standing upright, Wing following suit. The grounder let his hand be taken as they edged back around the pool to where Wing kept his chest of supplies and his discarded armor. The jet fluttered his wing to shake off droplets of water before reaching into the chest and pulling out two smaller drying cloths and two larger ones. With ease, Wing slung one of the larger sets over Drift’s shoulders and let it settle over his upper arms and down to the lower end of his back.

            Well, Wing had pampered Drift enough as it was… “Here,” the bi-colored mech offered, taking a smaller cloth from an unresisting hand before laying it flat against his palm, letting the fibrous cloth hang over his fingers, and gently started wiping liquid residue off of Wing’s helm with slow, measured caresses. With a surprised shutter of optics, Wing began mirroring the same motions on Drift’s head, matching him caress for caress. Drift couldn’t help but let out a soft moan as those gentle fingers rubbed the cloth over every accessible micrometer of plating, wiping away mineral-rich water and leaving the new white armor gleaming. With as tender a touch as possible, Drift responded in kind over each of Wing’s audial flares, running smoothly along the sharp edges, then across his cheeks and under the optics. Together, they travelled down over dripping neck cabling and across broad white shoulders before Wing took the smaller cloths away and folded them into a pile to be brought back for sanitizing.

            Shaking himself slightly to divulge himself of as many loose droplets as possible, Wing knelt down to start putting his armor back on, but his hand bumped against another that had reached down at the same time. Gold optics met shimmering blue, Drift’s gaze and field extending an invitation that the jet readily accepted. Just like before, the grounder handled each piece of gleaming white armor with delicacy, finesse, and unofficial ceremony, slowly securing each latch and making sure that each piece was in its proper place. First the legs, then up along the abdomen and torso to Wing’s arms, and finally to the few pieces that he dared discard from his wings, Drift did them all with an unusual amount of patience and silence, maintaining the atmosphere. Finally, with one last latch of shoulder plating, Drift stepped back and allowed Wing to resettle the armor back against his protoform with a ragged sigh.

            “Thank you,” the Knight replied very sincerely, and he was rewarded with a smile in turn as Drift finished drying himself off before Wing took the drying cloth back and stored it in subspace. The two of them remounted Too Pure for this World back on Wing’s back-bracket, and Wing calmly brought the medical tarp out of the chest and shook it open, opening it up to drape along Drift’s shoulders. “You’ll need it for the flight back,” the jet responded when Drift hesitated, and he had to admit that he was right and stood with arms outstretched. Wing slowly draped the tarp over his shoulders before proceeding to take each of the expansive sides and wrapping them across Drift’s body, securing his arms and legs from the colder outside air. On an impulse, the jet leaned into Drift’s back and gave him a hug around his middle, his chin on Drift’s shoulder.

            Drift looked around at the hug, at Wing burrowing his face into Drift’s shoulder from behind, and then back out at the cave. Those crystals still glowed with their ethereal blue brilliance, like a slowly beating spark, and the pools were calm save for the occasional drip from the pale stalactites that hung like fangs from the ceiling. The waterfall still rushed in the background, adding to the peace of this alien environment. “Thank you for bringing me here,” Drift leaned back to whisper into Wing’s audial, and the jet nuzzled his cheek.

            “Thank you for letting me share my secret with you,” Wing responded in kind, removing his full-body grip and taking one of Drift’s covered hands to lead him back up the ledge and out of the cavern. On the ledge, the two halted in their progress out of the cavern, and Drift cast one last look behind him at the crystal where he had recharged in the pool. Its rhythmic flares and dimming of light was so steady and even, Drift felt himself timing his ventilations and, unconsciously, his spark beat in time with its glow. Physically, he felt less achy and far calmer now, lending to a ping from his processor that he needed a good, long recharge cycle very soon. With a gentle tug, Wing led him back through the winding passage, out of the cave and back into the shadows of New Crystal City. The artificial sky was the palest shade of dark blue possible. Dawn was upon them.

            “Wait here,” Wing guided Drift to the same large rock where he had been stationed to watch Wing move the boulder concealing his sanctuary’s entrance, and he repeated the process while Wing rolled the stone back over the maw-like entrance. Even with the cool breezes of air in the shadow, things felt peaceful for the former Decepticon front-liner. It felt like he could fall asleep on his peddes at any second and nobody would care, least of all him…

            The next time he briefly roused, it was to find a bright, soft organic quilt being pulled over his frame while he was nestled among soft cushions and pillows, and the innocent gleam of golden optics above him as Wing tucked the padded blanket over his large, muscular frame. Fumbling in his half-awake stage, Drift brushed his fingers over Wing’s wrist, catching his attention, wanting to thank him for such thorough and tender care. Instead, he mumbled “Stay, please,” the miracle being that it actually sounded mildly intelligible, but the meaning was clear to his caretaker.

Wing’s own tired optics lit up at the opportunity, and he took one of the edges that he had so meticulously straightened over the free side of the large recharge slab and climbed under the covers with Drift, laying his head on another pillow and facing Drift. The two twirled tired fingers together and drew closer to one another, meshing their tired fields together, becoming one tired, calm mechanism, and entering into peaceful recharge together.    

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, a nice wrap up to the onsen-inspired hot springs, but this is only the penultimate chapter. I cordially invite you to wait for the final chapter, which should be published very shortly. In the meantime, please don't die of the feels.


	5. Solace

   ~Two Days Later~        

Wing onlined to almost everything hurting; his joints, energon lines, armor plating, wings…Pit, even his spark seemed to throb with a dull, persistent ache. He shuttered his optics against the too-bright light glaring down at him from above and tried to reach a hand up to shield his vision, groaning with the effort.

            “Good, you’re awake.” Redline’s helm appeared to block the light while he scanned the twitching jet. “What hurts the most right now?”

            “May I please say that everything hurts and get out of here?” Wing moaned against the tingle of the scans that seemed to exacerbate his pain. “What hit me?”

            “You don’t remember?” the medic grumbled, taking a diagnostic cable and plugging it into the medical port at the base of Wing’s helm. “Might just be a delay in the memory relay to the rest of your processor. This should speed it up a bit.”

            “What- GAH!” Wing clutched at his helm with one hand as an internal firestorm raged with the onslaught of the memories that crashed into him. He took it back; _this_ hurt like the Pit. Memory file after memory file flashed back into existence, painfully clear, and no amount of calm breathing that Wing tried could soften the flinches that he experienced as he remembered.

            He’d undergone a penance; a very painful one.

            **_There are no secrets in New Crystal City. Secrets are a threat._**

            “Okay, I remember now,” Wing ground out between gritted denta, massaging the bridge of his nasal ridge. “ _Frag_.”

            “Watch your language,” Redline chided him halfheartedly, disconnecting and handing Wing a cube of med-grade. The jet drank from the pink cube greedily, satisfying his near-empty tanks just barely. “I’ve repaired as much physical damage as I could, but your repair nanites are still going and will be for a few days. I’ll give you some painkillers, but the key is to take it easy, alright?”

            “I will,” Wing agreed before setting down the empty cube, slipping off the medical berth and staggering, his knee joints flaring up, but he suppressed a hiss of pain and settled for a wince and limped towards the door. Thankfully, his hab suite wasn’t far.

            “Your Decepticon was in here earlier, getting his armor put back on,” Redline called from where he was cleaning up medical supplies and putting it back in the cabinets. “He should be expecting you back. I told him what to expect.”

            Wing lifted off as soon as he was able to, taking off in a staggering flight path for the balcony of his hab suite, a pang in his spark. Would Drift know how to take care of him? Would he even be interested? Oh, and the reason for Wing’s penance…he remembered the happiness that he’d teaked from Drift in the cave. His companion would be crushed. If he could wait to deliver the news until after he had fully recovered, maybe the blow wouldn’t be quite so hard on him. Lost in his thoughts, Wing almost didn’t decelerate in time when his balcony came into view, and braking was taxing his systems to much, making his engines stall. He braced for a hard crash through the window and didn’t look forward to the mess.

            “I’ve got you!” With a grunt from both of them, Wing transformed at the last second and crashed into an upright, repaired, and ready Drift, sending them tumbling head over pedde and in a tangle of limbs. Drift lost his grip on the pain-ridden jet and landed flat on his back, and Wing toppled over him and landed painfully against the wall near the door with a shriek.  Forgetting his Knight training and composure, the white jet huddled in a ball, trying to stymie the pain flaring through his entire body and letting out a completely warranted whimper of agony. Oh, everything hurt so much, and a pinion felt bent out of place from the crash.

            Strong arms wrapped around Wing’s chassis and pulled him up slowly and gently against a broad, warm frame. One stayed on his back while the other slid under his aching knee struts, and Wing could face Drift’s scrunched and worried expression, blue optics narrowed in concern. “You alright?” the grounder asked hoarsely, shuffling to Wing’s untouched berth and setting the jet on the cushions with unnatural tenderness. Too pained to even enunciate properly, Wing pulled a brave face that felt more like a grimace and nodded (which felt like his processor had jarred loose and was rattling around in his cranial cavity). He tried to sit up, but that hurt as well and lying back felt very, very nice right now. Drift, bless his spark, didn’t appear convinced and right now, Wing didn’t want him to be. “Wait here,” the former Decepticon muttered needlessly and turned to the closet, pulling out a very familiar piece of colored cloth. He gripped the edges of the quilt and brought it up around Wing’s shoulders and helm, tucking the fabric close to his body. The soft caress of the organic material was a soothing balm on his aching, feverish plating, so he gripped fistfuls of the cloth in his hands and huddled on his side, wings pressed as flat to his body as he could manage and nuzzling into the blanket.

            **_There are no secrets in New Crystal City. Secrets are a threat._**

            Something bright pink and warm appeared in his field of vision, held in one of Drift’s dark hands. “Redline said that I should warm it for you,” the grounder recited his instructions from the medic, tipping Wing’s shoulders and head up gently and tipping the cube of energon to his mouth. “Hungry?” Refusing to answer vocally, Wing settled for angling the cube more steeply with his denta and gulping down the warm, bubbling liquid energy, splashing a little bit under his nasal ridge and dribbling down his chin. The fuel hit his fuel tanks with a satisfying burn. “Easy there!” Drift exclaimed, tipping the mostly empty cube back up and wiping the messy jet’s face with a finger, catching the droplets of the warm energon before they could stain the quilt before offering the cube again. “Slower,” he ordered more sternly, keeping a firm hold on the cube and slowly tipping the remains of the energon into Wing’s waiting mouth. “Don’t want you to get sick.”

            _Frag that_ , Wing thought mutinously and with a grim smile, but he still took smaller, more careful sips of the offered fuel. _I need fuel. I’m hungry and it will help me forget._ Cube done, Drift set the empty container on the floor by the berth and pulled out another warm cube of energon, which Wing promptly inhaled as well. That satisfying, achy burn in his fuel tanks was a good indicator that he was now fuelled up and could properly rest under the ministrations of his guest. The speedster in question slowly rubbed a small circle on the yellow crystal inlaid in Wing’s brow with the pad of his thumb, providing a good distraction for the both of them. If he could focus on Drift and how he was helping him recover, he wouldn’t have to think about what led up to his harsh penance; if he did, the emotions through his EM field might betray him, and Wing didn’t want pity right now. Stewing in rebellion and anger may not seem healthy, but he had good reason to be.

            “Are you going to tell me why it took you two days to get back here from that meeting with Dai Atlas?” Drift asked, slightly halting in his question but speaking with confidence.

            Well, so much for keeping Drift from asking questions about it, and Wing had done enough lying, if Dai Atlas was anyone to go by. “I had to undergo a penance,” the Knight admitted softly, distracted by the smooth protoform finger that had migrated to the sensitive area right between his optic ridges.

            **_There are no secrets in New Crystal City. Secrets are a threat. Keeping them…_**

            “What was it for? You’ve been such a goody two-peddes lately, I can’t think of anything that you’ve done wrong.”

            Maybe he could keep the grounder from asking anymore… “I can’t say,” Wing tried sullenly, looking away in shame for his lie. “It’s Knight business.”

            “Shuttlescrap,” Drift snarled, his grip on Wing’s shoulder tightening in his annoyance. He took a short breath to cool down his temper with only a little success. “I’m supposed to take care of you, like you did to me. I can’t do that if you won’t tell me what’s upsetting you.”

            “It’s really not a bother,” the jet insisted.

            **_There are no secrets in New Crystal City. Secrets are a threat. Keeping them makes…_**

            “I can feel it in your field; I’m not blind. Stop treating me like I’m stupid and just say what-“

            “ _I lied_ ,” Wing spat bitterly, meeting Drift’s blue optics again, bitterness, resentment, and shame making his plating stick flat to his frame. “I lied to the Circle through omission. Dai Atlas was very angry and…I had to suffer a penance.”

            Drift froze, completely floored. He’d never known Wing to lie to anyone; if anything, the jet’s calm honesty could almost be seen as brutal, a softened blade that still left its mark.

            Wing’s bitterness and anger was quickly dissolving into resentment and distress, now, his frame shuddering. “That night…” he began with a whisper, “the night we went to my secret sanctuary…Seabreeze had been watching me, noticed that I sometimes went off on my own to a place that wasn’t the surface. He followed us to the cave and went to Dai Atlas with the coordinates. I…” He had to pause because Drift’s face had morphed into a curious, rather unsightly cross between horror and rage. Blue optics flickered with intense emotion and his lip plates kept shifting between horrified gape and fang-bearing snarl. That look, a perfect blend of the abused gutter-mech from Rodion and the sneering savage that had been Megatron’s dog of war, did not suit him.

            **_There are no secrets in New Crystal City. Secrets are a threat. Keeping them makes you a…_**

Wing took a shuddering inhale, rapidly losing composure. “I had been trespassing without even realizing it. The land deed for Seabreeze’s therapy pools had been amended, extending to any caverns located within the immediate vicinity of New Crystal City. That cave belongs to him now, so I can’t go back.” He was on full autopilot now, repeating what he’d been told throughout his penance binding, and his voice had lost its usual song-like luster. He felt like a broken mech, not healed as the penances were intended to do. “I lied through omission by not telling the Knights about it, so that it could be shared. I kept it secret when I wasn’t allowed to, and therefore threatened the wellbeing of the city. I was selfish for keeping something so beneficial from the rest of New Crystal City because we’re supposed to be helping each other, not looking out for our own interests. Secrets aren’t meant to be kept in New Crystal City-“

**_There are no secrets in New Crystal City. Secrets are a threat. Keeping them makes you a threat._ **

“There…are no secrets in New Crystal City.” Wing stumbled over his words and bit his cheek. “Secrets are a threat, and keeping them makes you a threat-“

            Arms wrapped tightly around his torso, and Wing was wrenched upright and partially out of his quilt covering by a shuddering collection of recently healed protoform, shifting plating, and tangled emotions. All that he could do was stare out unseeing from where his chin was perched on Drift’s shoulders, his arms pinned by the other mech’s embrace. “Don’t turn into a damned propaganda machine on me,” Drift hissed softly into Wing’s audials without any trace of menace directed towards him. “I had to deal with that slag back on Cybertron with the fragging Senate and the Functionists…you’re too good for it here.”

“You’re more than what they say you are. Isn’t that what you told me? You’re more than your labels.” Optic cleanser started beading at the edge of Wing’s wide optics, and his hands scrambled and flailed from where they were trapped against Drift’s chassis, desperate to wipe the evidence away before the tears started.

            “The Wing I know isn’t a liar.” Wing shuttered his optics physically, and that damnable cleansing moisture spread.

            **_Secrets…threat…_**

            “The Wing I know isn’t a trespasser or a thief. You’re practically a saint.” His hands stopped flailing, but his lip plates trembled.

            **_Secrets…_**

            “The Wing I know works hard for everyone else to make them so Primus-damned happy, and you deserve your own happiness, too.”

            _Secrets…_

            “The Wing I know isn’t a threat. You’re not a threat, and you can keep whatever secrets that you want.”

            A sob tore itself free from Wing’s vocalizer as he violently rejected that stupid mantra and wrested it from his processors, and he shattered in Drift’s arms; he spluttered, cried, sobbed, moaned, screamed (into Drift’s shoulders, because woe be to any other Knight of the Circle that barged in on Wing having an emotional breakdown), and whimpered while Drift just held him tightly in that all-encompassing embrace. All the pain that he’d concealed from his EM field by the end of his penance, to try to make them see that he’d submitted and was fine but in reality wasn’t but should be released anyways, came exploding out of him and over Drift like a tidal wave of molten emotion.

            Wing had come so close to completely breaking under the onslaught of his verbal abuse at the hands of Dai Atlas during his penance binding, and it honestly frightened him. A Knight shouldn’t break when penances were meant to heal, make them realize their weaknesses so that they could correct them and emerge a better living being. All he’d been able to think about was that damned mantra that he’d been made to repeat over and over to Too Pure for this World, and the Great Sword had felt like it didn’t believe the words any more than it believed that he really meant them. New Crystal City _itself_ , and all that it contained, were a secret. The hypocrisy of it all was astounding.

            Through it all, Drift was his rock, his anchor to stability and the physical world, keeping him rooted and from going into a self-destructive spiral into depression and shame. He was like his favorite crystal that they had lain on together in the cavern: steady, firm, pulsing with an inner light and more than anyone could label on the surface or give him credit for, but not Wing. Wing loved this mech, loved him for everything that he was and wasn’t. He truly was Wing’s freedom, freedom from the monotony that had come to consume his existence.

            The way that Drift held him as he broke down about the loss of his sanctuary to an honestly greedy business-mech, shushing him gently, rubbing his tired and aching body, and making promises about how they had each other while carefully wrapping him back up in his favorite quilt, showed that even if he’d never say it outright in his lifetime, It showed the cruel world around them that Drift loved Wing as well.

            The crying finally died down. The tears finally stopped. Wing lay in an exhausted, emotionally drained stupor against Drift’s rumbling chest as the grounder made his high-performance engine purr, sending comforting vibrations and warmth through the flyers body and soothing most facets of his pain. The shuddering, keening Wing was gently laid flat on his back again with the organic quilt safely tucked around him like a security blanket. Drift ran his thumb across Wing’s cheeks to wipe away the tear tracks and kissed those sad, trembling lips. He looked down into flickering, tired golden optics with an uncharacteristic warmth…

            No. It may have been uncharacteristic for Deadlock, but this was Drift. He was his own mech, making his own decisions, and helping those who’d been run ragged and couldn’t help themselves, just like his gorgeous Knight. “Rest, Wing,” he urged with a whisper, kicking the balcony doors shut with a rattle and hearing the ping of the automatic lock. He made to stand up.

            A hand poked out from under the blanket and swiped weakly at his wrist, drawing his attention back down. “Stay,” Wing begged hoarsely, pleading with his optics when his face couldn’t quite express it accurately. “Please.”

            How could Drift say no? Easy answer: he couldn’t, and he didn’t want to. With great care, the bi-colored stranger of New Crystal City, who were all determined to write him off as a bloodthirsty Decepticon, lay down and curled into the one mech here who expressed any faith in him. Drift pulled Wing gently into his arms, as the jet had done for him when he’d been ill, and the two settled into a calming recharge, escaping the world.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, it's done! My own feels are acting up with this sucker-punch of an ending. 
> 
> Glad that you guys stuck with me for this one. If you have any questions, comments, constructive criticisms, etc., I'd be happy to hear them down below in the comment section. Thanks for reading my first complete work on AO3, and let it not be the last.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at writing fluff for a pairing that I absolutely adore. I don't expect this to be a masterpiece like other works that I've seen for Drift*Wing, but I hope to do these two justice. Also, this won't be smut. Just lots and lots of feels. All of the comforting feels. 
> 
> (I'm so sorry ^-^;)


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